Thursday, November 29, 2007

Sleepwalking, part II

Le Petit slept badly on Sunday night. He woke up at half past midnight, just as I was getting ready to go to sleep myself, and it took and hour and a half of nursing, pacing about the bedroom, then nursing again to get him to fall back asleep. I felt like an idiot, for it was likely my fault: I’d just pumped both breasts before getting ready for bed, so he was probably hungry, but since he’s not keen on bottles, I didn’t want to try feeding him from one in the middle of the night. I finally fell asleep with him in my arms at two o’clock, and woke up, my back still propped against the headboard of my bed, at two-thirty. I put him down in his crib where he stayed asleep until six, when he repeated the same two hour circus before falling asleep for another half an hour at eight.

He hadn’t sleep poorly for months, and I was angry. I was grumpy and depressed like I hadn’t been for some time, and I had little patience for le Petit most of the day. The infant distraction merry-go-round of shuffling him from crib to chair to activity mat to sling wore me down like it rarely does. At the end of the day, I almost regretted not being back at work.

I felt stupid, for if I hadn’t been up until half past midnight, I wouldn’t have been so severely sleep deprived. I was ashamed that severe sleep deprivation turned me into such a beast. I felt like a rotten mom.

My husband and I griped at each other on Monday night for no particular reason other than he’d slept as badly as I had. Le Petit was fussy and ill-humored as well, probably for the same reason. But he fell asleep early, and slept very well, and the next day all was well with us again.

I am embarrassed that I have such little patience, and that one night of bad sleep for whatever valid reason – teething, hunger, nightmares – left me angry and selfish instead of loving and concerned about le Petit’s welfare. I’m doing my best, but sometimes that best seems startlingly pathetic.

1 comment:

Mom In France
said...

Hi PmP -- Glad to see you're back, even if a bit sleepless. I'm pretty weak on this too: Boo is such a good sleeper that I really can't imagine not having regular good sleep and one the very occasional off-day I feel like complete zombie. I think my worst day was with the time change when his sleep was completely wacked out and he woke up at 4.30 on Monday & I had to go to work. I was dead at work, and grouchy otherwise. Good thing it's rare.

About Me

I was born in Seattle, but now live on the other side of the map, just outside of Paris. I fell in love with and married a Frenchman in Boston, and in 2003 we took the great leap across the Atlantic. In the summer of 2007 we welcomed our son, le Petit, and in late 2010 our daughter, Mademoiselle. This is the story of my life as a pseudo-Parisienne in my country of adoption. Contact me at parisiennemaispresque (at) gmail (dot-com).